The German artist Alexandra Bircken is concerned with surfaces. Initially trained as a fashion designer at Central Saint Martins, Bircken pivoted from clothes to sculpture around 2000. Even so, fashion still informs her work. Exploring the idea of shells, and how a person protects themself from the outside world, Bircken often uses clothes and discarded textiles in her assemblages. Her new site-specific exhibition features empty black-latex suits that sag against walls and crumple inward on the floor. The limp suits are staged as if their inhabitants were victims of war. —Jensen Davis